Document (#23894)

Author

Gray, J.

Title

Symbols and suggestions : Communication of mathematics in print

Source

Mathematical intelligencer. 23(2001) no.2, S.59-64

Year

2001

Abstract

Mathematicians are creators (or discoverers, if you wish). They are also communicators, and receivers. In all these roles they are people with sophisticated ways of assembling and re-assembling ideas. For several centuries, the most effective communication medium has been print. Historians of mathematics sometimes used to claim that without this or that piece of notation some idea was unthinkable. This does not seem entirely satisfactory, especially to mathematicians who know very well that new symbols are easy to devise, but the claim has some merit. It is more profitable to argue that mathematical notation, like any language, is torn between syntax and semantics and often proceeds by relying on tacit understandings about meanings. Two examples will be considered here, one drawing on recent work about the implications of ratio and equality, and one on examples of logical notation

Field

Mathematik
Semiotik
Mathematische Logik

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